NetHack

NetHack is a decades-old terminal game. It's complicated and unforgiving. And it's great. Wikipedia has a good overview.

Playing

You can either telnet or SSH to nethack.veekun.com. The SSH username/password are nethack:nethack, the server fingerprint is be:8b:2b:81:19:29:c3:b1:f8:b1:e5:84:5c:3c:35:2c, and there's a private key (with no passphrase) you can use.

If you're on Linux, OS X, or any other Unix derivative, you can use your built-in telnet or ssh. If you're on Windows, your best bet is PuTTY.

Configuring

Log in and press o to edit your options file. The base NetHack options are described in the documentation. There are a few extra options provided by modifications we have made to the game; these are listed at the bottom of the default configuration file.

All of the following are on by default.

menucolors

Enables the menucolors patch, allowing color to brighten your inventory and spell/skill lists. Colors are configured with the MENUCOLOR variable.

Bugs

It's possible to figure out the correct altar on the Astral Plane by using telepathy and trying to Call a priest; the game will reveal the priest's corresponding god in the resulting error message. This patch randomizes the named god, fixing this minor exploit.

Player actions

Just like SLASH'EM, valuable gems may be dissolved in acid to create a potion of the appropriate color. The exact combinations are listed on WikiHack, with the following changes: amber creates amber potions, jasper creates brown potions, and aquamarine creates viscous potions. These modifications were necessary to work with color alchemy, which changed two potion colors.

The protagonist now remembers what features are on each dungeon level. Use #overview or ctrl-o to see a list of what you've seen, or #annotate to name a dungeon level. Amnesia will erase parts of this list as appropriate.

Adds several new item categories usable at Drop and Inventory prompts: I for unidentified items, P for the last group of items picked up or looted, Q for the last group of items auto-picked up, r for items that can rust, or Z to invert the selection.

Requires the player to type 'yes' rather than merely 'y' at important prompts. Enabled by paranoid_hit, paranoid_quit, and paranoid_remove, which correspond to attacking a peaceful creature, quitting the game, and removing the last accessory or piece of armor (which will show the normal list instead of automatically removing it). All three are on by default.

Provides colors for your inventory, the spell menu, and the #enhance menu. The coloring can be customized by the MENUCOLOR variable. The default is to color cursed/uncursed/blessed items as red/yellow/green, bold holy and unholy water, and color spells in the spell menu according to success rate.

Always show 'uncursed' in the name of identified items. Vanilla NetHack names fully-identified wands, for example, as merely "a wand of nothing (0:6)" . Enabled by the showbuc option, which is on by default.

When showing a menu of items where an item category character can be pressed to select all items of that type, show the character in each category header. Enabled by the showsym option, which is on by default.

Allows recoloring of parts of the status bar, as controlled by the STATUSCOLOR variable. The default is to color power and hp in blue/green/yellow/red as they decrease and color status effects in various appropriate colors.

Uses dark gray instead of dark blue for monsters and items that are actually gray or black. Enabled by the use_darkgray option, which is on by default. Turn this off if you're running into invisible unicorns!

Game over

Adds conducts for virginity, avoiding being human in Hell, never using conflict, sobriety, never using Elbereth, never wearing armor, and Zen (being blind the whole game). Also shows time spent playing on the final conduct list.

At the end of the game, everything shown to the player is dumped to a file: the final state of the map, the most recent messages, the player's inventory, conducts, known spells and skills, vanquished and extinct creatures, the death message, and the high score list. This patch has also been updated to respect the new conducts added by the conducts patch.

When a player dies and will leave bones, the game now prompts for a custom epitaph to appear on the gravestone. This epitaph only appears in a bones level, not on the high score board or in the log files. As an added perk, the prompt for an epitaph makes it easy to tell if a particular game has left bones.

Creates a secondary log of all played games that's easier to parse and includes conducts, number of turns, amount of time spent playing, the start and end times of the game, the player's starting gender and alignment, and any achievements (milestones within the plot, such as defeating Medusa or obtaining the Amulet). This patch has also been updated to respect the new conducts added by the conducts patch.